Abe felt sick all the way into the core of his heart. He looked up the Shoot's narrow
walls for the avalanche that had to come. It came.
Abe grappled with the rope and got a handful of Kelly's jacket. He shoved her
beneath an outcrop.
The main mass of the avalanche sluiced past in a tube of thunder and rubble. The
bulk of it struck the face several hundred feet lower.
Abe and Kelly clung to one another and kept their faces to the wall, breathing inside
their parkas to keep from suffocating in the cloud of fine spindrift. The aftershock beat
them against the rock and ice, but their rope held.
Kelly hung on to Abe. He hung on to her. He felt more tremors shaking them
through the wall. Then he realized the tremors were actually from a person sobbing.
But when he looked at Kelly's face, she wasn't the one doing the crying.
All day long, Abe pressed to catch up with Daniel and Gus. Teamed together, he and
Daniel could speed the descent and pool their precautions. At the top of each rope, he
felt the line for human vibrations. He peered into the depths, but didn't see a soul.
They landed at the cave just as darkness tinged the white storm. Abe had hoped to
reach Two or One or even ABC before nightfall. But he was getting used to dashed
hopes. At this hour it would have been foolhardy to try for a lower camp.
Abe unzipped both tents at Four, sure Daniel and Gus would be inside one of them.
But the tents were empty. It looked like Daniel had stopped here just long enough to
melt some water and root around for an oxygen bottle. Then he'd gone on. Abe
wondered if the two had survived the afternoon's avalanche.
Abe led Kelly inside and zipped her into a bag. With rest and care, her sight would
return. But it wasn't likely they would get such a respite until ABC or lower.
He started some snow on the stove, then assembled the last two bottles of the Kiwis'
oxygen supply and fitted an extra mask over Kelly's mouth and took the other for
himself. They got a single pot of water from the remaining butane. It would be their
first and last water on the descent.
In the morning, Kelly's eyes were no better, but at least they were no worse. Abe's
whisper had upgraded to a hiss. Outside, the storm continued. Since they had slept
fully clothed, not removing even their boots, they were able to leave first thing.
They reached Three at noon. The tent walls had been perforated by falling rock.
One of the platforms had taken a direct hit, knocking its legs out. The camp looked
desolate. Daniel and Gus had spent the night here. Frozen blood and dirty dressings
lay everywhere. There was no butane for melting water, no food, no oxygen. No
reason for Abe and Kelly to pause a minute longer.
Camp Two no longer existed. It had been scoured away by avalanches. Abe followed
Daniel's makeshift string of ropes across a blank stretch, then picked up the line as
four expeditions had laid it out over the years.
Minutes after traversing a gully, another avalanche scrubbed away the route behind
them. Once the billowing powder settled, Abe saw that the ropes leading up to Three
had been erased once and for all.
The terrain below Two eased considerably. Ironically, the easier angles made
descent more difficult. In the Shoot, where the wall was pitched at 70 to 80 degrees,
gravity had done most of Kelly's work. But as they approached One, Abe had to cajole
and push and lift Kelly across sections that defied simple lowering. It exhausted them
both.
Just before dark they reached the yellow tents at One. The wind had flattened one
of the tents and one was missing altogether. Abe scavenged for anything of use.
Except for some rock-hard nutrition bars – useless because of their loose teeth – the
camp was barren of food. There was no gas to melt water, no oxygen for Kelly, no
sleeping bags, no medicine, not so much as an aspirin. He wondered what had
happened to Jorgens and Thomas and Stump. It was entirely conceivable the
mountain had stalked and caught them.
Abe considered spending the night here. They could haul the collapsed tent inside
the one still standing and wrap themselves in it and probably survive the night. On
the other hand, there was still a little more light left.
While he was trying to decide what to do, Abe spied the third tent. It looked alive as
it wiggled slowly down the slope beneath them. At first he thought it was just blowing
downhill. Then he saw a tiny figure – Daniel – fishing it into the depths with a rope.
He had bundled Gus inside and made it into a crude sled.
Abe put his lips near Kelly's ear. 'I see them.'
'They've found us?' she cried.
'No. It's Daniel and Gus.'
Kelly tried to put a good face on it, but she was crushed. Abe had to pull her to
standing and then herd her down the slope. He didn't waste time trying to attract
Daniel's attention. The two teams of climbers joined together a thousand feet lower at
the bergschrund, the deep crack dividing the mountain and its glacier. It was a border
of sorts. And they needed to escape across it. It was so dark Abe and Daniel could
barely see each other. Across its gaping four-foot-wide split, the Rongbuk Glacier
awaited them with all its crevasses and obstacles.
No sooner did Abe reach the schrund than he realized they were going to get caught
out tonight. It would have been suicidal to try crossing a mile of open glacier at this
hour. The past several days of snowfall would have collapsed all their markers and
new crevasses would have opened during the earthquake. So there was no
alternative. They would have to wait until morning.
'I thought you were lost,' Daniel greeted Abe. He seemed oblivious to their danger.
It was night. The wind was extreme. None of them had eaten or slept or drunk much
for two days and nights.
'Daniel, we've got to get out of this wind.'
'I don't think we're going to make it,' Daniel replied. His voice creaked. His blue eyes
were rheumy. The bones of his face declared famine.
'We'll make it,' Abe said. 'But we need shelter.' A blast of wind knocked him back
against the snow. Daniel nodded his agreement, but he had no solution.
'Here,' Abe pointed. He was standing on the upper lip of the gaping crack. 'Maybe we
could go down in there.' Abe knew that climbers sometimes bivouaced in crevasses.
But the thought of descending into the crystalline underworld had long been his
waking nightmare. It was their only hope though.
'Maybe,' Daniel shouted into his ear. Daniel had scrounged a headlamp from one of
the deserted camps. He shined it into the black depths. To Abe's surprise, there
seemed to be a distinct bottom some fifty or sixty feet down. Avalanches had
apparently filled in some of the hole.
Together, Abe and Daniel cut a long section of rope loose and lowered Gus into the
crevasse. She made soft noises when they knocked her against the walls. Kelly was
next, then Daniel. Abe went last, checking to make sure the rope was firmly anchored
for their exit. He dreaded descending into the opening, almost preferring the darkness
of night to the possibility of another earthquake sealing the crevasse's lips above
them. But Daniel's little light beckoned to him, and he went toward it.
The crevasse walls were spaced ten feet apart and had the slick feel of glass. Closer
