waistband and slumped forward, breathing deeply. One of the other Sherpas brought
over a cup of tea and just the fumes helped restore him. He drank and felt better. ABC
was a bleak place made all the bleaker because it lay in the very palm of the
mountain. Night was coming on and alpenglow had turned Everest into a vast crimson
spike. Its plume of red snow reached out for the plunging sun. Abe noticed that
everyone else seemed to be ignoring the mountain with a business-as-usual
nonchalance. He was alone in relishing the spectacle.
Everest didn't just overshadow ABC, it towered above. It utterly dominated the
land. Time and space had frozen tight here. The earth had stopped. As in Ptolemy's
scheme, the sun seemed to orbit this point. Here was the center.
From the outset Abe had imagined that this expedition was going to be a great
collective memory, one that he and his comrades would each harken back to in their
old age. Forever after, it would warm them on cold days, strengthen them, give them
an epic poetry to tell their grandchildren. Back in Boulder, Abe had lain awake beside
Jamie at night and stared up through the skylight, telling himself stories about how he
was going to climb a great mountain. But now, faced with actually ascending into this
pure light, his only thought was 'how absurd.'
'Doc?' Kelly was standing beside him, hunched beneath her big blue pack. For the
first time, Abe noticed a monarch butterfly she had embroidered onto the side pocket,
an iridescent creature that would have died within minutes up here. He wondered
what the yakherders thought of it, if they even associated it with reality.
'Is that your tent, Doc?'
Abe looked around at the other tents, already filling with people. 'Yeah, I guess,' he
said.
'You got a bunkie?'
Was this the beginning of what Thomas had warned him against? Abe hesitated, less
out of loyalty to Jamie than disappointment. Kelly obviously thought him safe to share
quarters with, and part of him didn't want to seem too safe to her. Even with her hair
greasy and eyes bloodshot from the sunscreen and sweat and her lips blistered, the
sight of Kelly took his breath away. It invaded what was left of his dwindling
memories of Jamie. It was difficult enough to remember what Jamie looked like
without waking to this other woman, this strange, harrowed beauty. But the truth
was, he did want to wake to her.
'It's just me,' he said.
'What would you think if we hooked up?' she asked. 'I think we're the last two not
paired off. And this is the last of the tents.' She seemed to think he might say no.
'I'd like that,' Abe said.
He reined it all in – the libido, the fantasies, the disbelief at his good fortune. In
itself, the prospect of a tentmate cheered him. He had grown tired of being alone at
Base, even with the traffic of visitors in and out of his tent. Kelly would be good
company, he sensed, and she could teach him things about the mountain. If things
worked out, they might even team up for some climbing and carrying. Abe had
noticed most of the climbers already matched up, and it was starting to look like he
and Kelly were the ugly ducklings. Thomas was looking at them from an uphill tent,
but when Abe stared back, he ducked away.
Quickly, because it was turning cold now, they set up house together. Kelly crawled
inside first. One at a time, Abe handed her the basics, staying outside while she laid
out their pads and sleeping bags, then hung a small propane cookstove by wires from
the ceiling. Elsewhere, other climbers were going through the same ritual, bracing for
night. One by one, they climbed into their tents and zipped up.
While Kelly worked in the tent, Abe watched Sonam, a Sherpa with gap teeth and
the slow gait of a sumo wrestler, chop pieces of ice from the bare glacier with his ice
axe. Like some burly Yankee peddler, he loaded the pieces into a burlap sack and
carried the ice around from tent to tent, leaving a pile of chips for each to use.
As Sonam approached, Abe could hear him mumbling prayers under his breath. He
dumped some chips by Abe and Kelly's door and looked up and said, 'Docta sob, docta
sob.'
'Thank you,' the doctor sahib said.
'Oh ho,' Sonam droned on, and returned to his prayers and ice delivery.
Abe was the last to get out of the wind. He took one last look at the mountain
overhead, then scooted into the doorway, feet last. He removed his shoes and clapped
off the limestone gravel and zipped the door shut. He was alone with one of the most
beautiful women on earth, but suddenly it didn't matter. There were more important
things than desire. Warmth and food and plain company easily outweighed other
inspirations.
Kelly had already fired up their little hanging cookstove and started a potful of ice
melting for hot chocolate. Until the team's second mess tent arrived with the next yak
train, the only communal meals the group was likely to share would be outside on
sunny days. For the time being, each pair of climbers cooked for itself. Over the next
two hours, Abe and Kelly took turns melting ice chips and cooking noodle soup or hot
drinks and melting more ice. It was vital that they drink two gallons or more per day.
Abe had quickly learned to read his urine, a literacy peculiar to high altitude
mountaineering. The darker the urine, the worse your dehydration, and at these
heights dehydration was a homicidal maniac. One's bodily fluids vanished into thin air,
expired and sweated away at dangerous rates.
It grew dark and cold, but they kept the flame at work under pot after pot of ice
melt. It gave them something to do while they talked. Abe learned a little about
Kelly's life in Spokane, that she was a biology teacher at a rural high school, that her
sisters all had babies, that she had been the youngest, and that her mother had long
ago despaired of her climbing adventures.
'It surprised me that you teach,' Abe said. 'They told me you were a model.' He was
thinking specifically of the hundreds of thousands of dollars in endorsement money
she'd brought in to the expedition.
'No way.' Kelly laughed self-consciously. 'It's one thing to hang clothes on a beat-up
blonde in the outdoors. As long as you keep the camera at a distance, I'm okay. But for
studio work, you have to be gorgeous. No wrinkles. No scars. No way. Not me.'
'But you must get a percentage of the endorsement money,' Abe said.
'Of course not,' Kelly said. 'I'm a climber, not a model.' She wasn't just shocked. She
was angry.
Abe saw he'd touched a nerve. 'I didn't mean to pry,' he said, and made himself busy
with the stove.
Kelly was frowning, figuring something out. 'It's okay,' she said. 'I just can't fight
everybody all of the time.'
'I don't know what that means.'
'This Barbie-doll crap. People act like I don't have any credentials. Like I'm here for
the photo ops but not for the climb.'
Abe didn't deny it. It was true. He'd heard the others talking. Until now it hadn't
occurred to him that Kelly might object to her role. 'Actually that sounds familiar,' he
said. 'They brought me along to doctor. But I came to climb, too. And I'm having my
