That was good news for everyone but the Tibetan boy. It meant the pass was open.
They were saved from a summer beneath Everest. They could all get on with their
lives. They could get on with their forgetting.
The Tibetan boy's breathing grew labored at midnight. Despite a continuous flow of
oxygen and a drip feed of glucose, he died at two. It was a soft passage. Abe was
catnapping. He was dreaming of horses. When he searched for a pulse, the boy's
carotid was silent. Abe listened through his stethoscope, but the heart was still. Abe's
light and motion woke Daniel, who had chosen at last to sleep beside Gus's plastic
chamber. 'The boy's gone,' Abe told him.
'All he wanted was to get over the mountain,' Daniel said.
'We did what we could do.'
'You know that's not so,' Daniel said.
'It's done now.'
'I keep thinking, what if we'd just got him over the mountain?'
'Daniel, it was too late.'
'I mean before it got too late. I mean instead of working the summit. We could have
got this one poor bastard out of hell. We could have, you know.'
Abe covered the boy's face. 'He got close. As close as we did.'
With Daniel's help, Abe carried the boy outside. The stars were glittering, no clouds.
The North Face of Everest was milky with the quarter moon's light. They set the
body in a small, tattered equipment tent, and gave it a moment's vigil.
'We can bury him in the morning,' Abe said.
'There won't be any burial,' Daniel said.
'But we can't just leave him.'
'He won't be left, don't worry. He's a reactionary and traitor, remember? The
Chinese still have uses for him. They still need to complete their records. They'll
photograph him. Then they'll sell him back to his family, if he has one.'
'No,' Abe said. 'We'll bury him.'
The world rushed in at dawn. Abe opened his eyes to the distant sound of engines. It
was six o'clock. Daniel was already gone. Abe paused to check on Gus before charging
outside to confirm their rescue.
At the north throat of the valley, five military trucks were crawling out onto the
floor. Slowly they lurched across the ice and frozen mud. The climbers crawled from
their tents. They waved and shouted hysterically like castaways upon a sinking raft.
Li's soldiers were more dignified, emerging from the Tomb to button their uniform
jackets and arrange themselves.
'Let's system it, people,' Jorgens yelled to the climbers. 'I guarantee they will want
to load and leave inside the hour. Let's see some system.'
The climbers and Sherpas began rushing around the camp, packing the few items
worth salvaging. Abe took the opportunity to root through the folds of his collapsed
hospital to see what was left. That was where Li found him.
'Now I will take custody of the prisoner.' The sun had not yet reached into the
valley, and Li's words appeared as blue smoke.
Abe let go of the torn tentage. He'd meant to avenge the boy by condemning Li and
his government's abuses, or perhaps demanding some paperwork, before revealing
the death. Instead, Abe just told him.
'He died,' Abe said.
'What? What you say?'
'Last night.'
'Impossible,' Li said. 'I give him to you. Now you give him to me.'
'He died,' Abe repeated very softly.
'No.' Li's voice rose. 'He is alive when you take him from official custody. He is alive.'
It occurred to Abe that Li needed a prisoner to justify himself. He had disobeyed
orders from martial authorities to close down the climb. Toward apprehending an
escapee, he had, on his own, permitted the expedition to continue. He had then given
a group of Westerners custody of the prisoner. Without a living, breathing fugitive to
show for his insubordination, there was no telling what the personal consequences
might be. Abe felt sorry for him.
'We should bury him here,' Abe said.
'Impossible.' Daniel had been right. There would be no burial after all. In the
distance, the officer was watching Li's upset. 'You show me. Now.'
Abe led him to the little equipment tent behind the mess tent. They passed people
furiously jamming gear into packs and burlap bags.
The first truck was almost upon them. Abe could hear its big tires crackling over the
icy tundra. Standing in the bed of the truck, Carlos and Thomas and Stump were
hooting and punching their fists into the sky.
Abe unzipped the door to the equipment tent. At least the boy had died in the
middle of the night. He would not have gotten his moment of silence otherwise, not
from the celebrants swarming through the camp. He was already forgotten.
That was when he found the body was gone.
The cherry red sleeping bag that Abe had zipped closed around his head was empty.
'He was there,' Abe pointed.
Li's eyes were furious. 'You make him escape,' he said, and bolted from the tent.
It took another hour for them to determine that Daniel was missing from camp. Not
without good reason, the Chinese refused to believe Abe's story. The climbers didn't
buy it either. It made no sense that Daniel would lead a corpse to freedom.
Ten o'clock came, with no resolution.
Abe's concern was for Gus. She needed medical attention as quickly as possible, but
the Chinese showed no hurry to depart. Already half the morning was gone. They
could have been partway up the Pang La by now, that much closer to Kathmandu and
home.
Jorgens and Thomas were almost as outraged as the Chinese by the escape attempt.
They had suffered Daniel's conduct for months on end, and this latest stunt was going
to cost them. Li threatened to haul them all off to Lhasa for an inquiry. He had
declared that Jorgens's permit for another attempt at the Kore Wall next year was
already a dead issue.
'Screw Corder,' Thomas growled. 'He ditched us.'
'The man deserted,' Jorgens agreed. 'You don't save deserters. You arrest them. Or
shoot them.'
'We have to find him,' Abe argued. 'He'll die out there.'
'He laid a death sentence on himself a long time ago,' Thomas said. 'And now he's
taken that kid down with him.'
'The boy died last night,' Abe said. He'd already told them. Only Kelly believed it,
though.
'He's made it over the passes before,' Stump said, but that was just to counter the
harshness.
Even the climbers who at first cheered Daniel's bid to free the boy grew disgruntled.
Earthquakes and slides had closed the Pang La once, they could close it again. Daniel
had gambled with their well-being.
