'Where are the rest of your people, Abe?' Stump gently asked. Abe heard his pity
and saw the doubt in his eyes. Stump didn't think there were any other survivors. It
took an effort for Abe himself to believe that his band of refugees was not a phantom.
'They're there all right,' Abe finally croaked.
'But where, Abe?'
'In the snow. On the trail.' That was the best he could do. He searched for something
more relevant. 'Hot tea,' Abe recommended. 'They would like that.'
Stump and Nima and three Sherpas set off to rescue whoever was left. At midnight,
by the light of their headlamps, they found the refugees. The night sky had clouded
over and so, fearing a new storm, they immediately started back down the trail. It
was nearly dawn before they reached camp.
They laid Gus on the wicker table in the mess tent because Abe's hospital had caved
in beneath the snow. At his request, the hospital had been partially excavated
overnight, and so he had access to all the medicines and oxygen and other supplies.
Steeped in caffeine and braced with hot food, Abe went to work on her.
The sun was just creeping over the east shoulder of the Rongbuk Valley, and the
tent wall lit up as he cut away Gus's bloody clothing and exposed her injuries to full
view. The months had taken their toll on Gus. Her beautiful athlete's body was gone,
replaced by a construction of sinew and bones. Every rib showed and her carefully
wrought muscles had vanished. Her moon-round breasts had withered.
'What's that stink?' Robby asked. From experience, Abe knew. Daniel would know,
too. Clostridia: gas gangrene. Abe dreaded what was coming. But first things first.
Because Daniel refused to leave, Abe gave him a Betadine scrub to wash Gus's upper
body. That let Abe consider the destruction below her waist.
With a pair of kitchen scissors, he finished cutting away her windpants and the
layered underclothing. Every snip of the scissors revealed more injury, more atrophy,
more loss. Between her legs, cupped in her panties, Abe found Gus's most secret loss.
She had been pregnant with Daniel's child, after all.
The remains were a week old, dating back to the avalanche. The mountain had
killed it. Quickly, so Daniel wouldn't know, Abe balled the desiccated sac inside her
panties and laid it in the pile of rags. Its disposal would have to wait.
Abe turned his attention to the injured right leg. He cut away Daniel's makeshift
splint and exhaled.
The leg was so damaged that the broken bones were almost secondary. Only now
did Abe verify that Daniel had rotated the leg properly. Daniel had done the best he
could under deadly conditions, but even so Gus's knee joint was completely
devastated.
'Daniel,' Abe said. Daniel paused in his tender cleansing of her bony arms. 'You need
to go away, Daniel.'
'I can't do that,' Daniel said.
'Okay,' Abe said. 'But look away.' With Jorgens's help, Abe began to reorganize the
leg. Bones popped and grated. Abe kept one hand on the knee and felt its parts leap
and dip. Jorgens – the ex-marine – had to leave the tent to vomit. At the sound of the
gruesome noises, Daniel crouched by Gus's ear and whispered, though she could hear
nothing.
That was just the beginning. Next Abe tried to determine the extent of her
fractures. The limb was so swollen he could barely trace the bones, much less find any
'override' of broken ends. There were at least three major breaks, possibly four, and
traction would have been his choice of treatment. But any sort of splints, even a soft
plastic air splint, would cut the blood supply to her mottled foot even more. He
couldn't afford that.
The frostbite had spread above her ankle. Every toe had turned black with necrosis.
They would have looked like mummified claws in a freak show, except the blackness
wasn't dry. It was draining and the unbroken blisters were inflated with gas. Death
was creeping into Gus through her toes.
'I'm sorry,' Daniel whispered to Gus. 'Forgive me.' The sight of her toes had set him
off.
'J.J.,' Abe said. 'Take him out of here.'
'I'm okay,' Daniel said.
Robby saw the toes and guessed what was coming. 'I'll help J.J.,' he volunteered,
and the two of them led Daniel out.
'Don't do too much,' Daniel pleaded with Abe from the tent door.
Abe opened the kit he'd never imagined using. He didn't dwell on the instruments,
barely knowing how to use them anyway. He wished now that it were a real physician
standing here in his place. Stump choked back his repulsion enough to disinfect the
toes by pouring a bottle of purple Betadine solution over them. Abe selected what
looked like a pair of stainless steel garden shears and Stump dumped Betadine over
them, too.
Abe was surprised by the shears' leverage and sharpness. The bones parted with a
snip. He stayed as distal as possible on each toe, figuring he could always trim them
more aggressively as the gangrene advanced. As it was, he had to prune most of the
joints anyway.
Stump poured more Betadine over what was left and Abe lay cotton dressings on
top and taped it lightly. The two of them finished washing Gus's thin body, then
dressed her in clean clothing and put her on oxygen. Finally they laid her in the
eight-foot-long plastic Gamow bag and pumped it tight with a foot pump. Each time
Abe peered through the clear face panel, Gus looked a little more at ease.
'That was an ugly job,' Stump told Abe. 'You did it well.'
'Now she has her chance,' Abe said.
'I guess,' Stump allowed.
'I need to take these rags to the garbage pit,' Abe said.
'I'll do it,' Stump said.
'It's okay,' Abe insisted.
The trench to the pit was still frozen and slick. He dumped the rags on top of other
camp refuse, then headed off toward the stone hut. No one had approached the Tomb
since the storm. It took Abe ten minutes to plow his way up the little hill.
Inside, the fabric ceiling bulged down under the weight of snow. Abe pried a stone
out of the floor and laid the tiny fetus underneath. Then he tamped the stone tight
again and left. No one would ever know – not Daniel, not Gus. Conceived here, this
one secret, anyway, would stay here.
The sun came hot that day. It blazed away at their cirque, triggering avalanches on
distant slopes and melting nearly half the snow in camp. By midday, the trenches
between tents had become waterways. Everest glistened to the south, once again
untouchable.
Every hour or so Abe peered through the face panel on the Gamow bag to check on
Gus. The big plastic tube lay in one corner of the mess tent like a piece of furniture no
one wanted to talk about. They ate lunch and dinner in there, but scrupulously
avoided mentioning it.
Abe slept beside the Gamow bag that night. He wanted to be close for any
