And it wasn’t, at first. The three of them ascended alongside the roaring plunge of the river, staying just outside the mist that coated the rocks with frost. It was mostly like climbing a steep staircase. But eventually they came to sheer “pitches,” or stretches of cliff where they couldn’t boulder-hop their way. Jake went ahead, driving pitons and shouting down to Sam until a length of rope was secured. That was their handrail. With it, Rominy found the courage to climb higher. The last two weeks had carried her a long way from her confined existence as cubicle girl. They’d been camping in the Tibetan wilderness, fixing tires, pouring fuel out of jerry cans, and speculating under the stars. She made love to Jake in their tent. His anticipatory happiness calmed her, and his wacky historical and scientific passions were tolerable. He was very bright. She’d fallen in love with him, too, but hadn’t confessed it yet.
Nor had they taken off the rings.
“Your boyfriend looks like he’s done this before,” Sam remarked as they waited for Jake to lead a pitch above.
“He’s climbed in the Cascades back home,” she said. “For a journalist, he’s a jack-of-all-trades.”
“All this for a story?”
“He thinks it could make his career.”
“Looks like he’s got a hell of an expense account.”
“He found me an inheritance. I’m helping.”
“Hmph.” Sam looked skeptical. “How about you?”
“How about me?”
“What do you do when you’re not retracing Nazi footsteps?”
“I’m a publicist. I spend my days promoting bug-laden software that will be obsolete six months after we sell it. I’m like Dilbert.”
“Oh.” He unwrapped a piece of gum. “Want some?”
“No, thanks.”
He put it in his mouth to chew. “How’d you two meet?”
She pulled back her filthy hair. “He kidnapped me after my car blew up.”
Mackenzie looked at her questioningly, like she was joking. “Oh… kay.”
“It’s a long story.”
“I guess. You know this guy well?”
“Two weeks.”
“And you come all the way to Tibet with him, wear a wedding ring, and pretend to be his wife?”
“Like I said, it’s a long story.”
“Don’t you find his Nazi crap a little weird?”
“He just likes history.” Mackenzie made her defensive.
“He talks about them like they were normal somehow. Like he could explain them. Who does that, man? I asked him what he wrote for the paper and he was real vague. He just seems a little… off. You know? You seen his stuff?”
She was annoyed. Sam Mackenzie had no idea what had been going on. “No.”
“Meet his friends? Visit the paper?”
“Trust me, we haven’t had time.”
“But this guy’s on the level, right?”
“Hasn’t he paid you well so far?” Zing!
“Well, that’s the thing. Most guys your age are backpackers, roaming Asia on the cheap. They’re always trying to bid me down, or trying to write a check, or cursing at the cash machine at the Jokhang for not giving them what they want, because they don’t really have it. And Jake pulls out all this cash.” He shook his head. “I guess that’s impressive that he got you to give it to him. But unusual, too, you know?”
She flushed. “Unexpected inheritance.”
“But he spends it.”
“ We spend it.”
“Okay. I mean I’m cool with it. I just…”
“Just what?”
“Want to make sure you’re okay.”
She spread her arms. “Other than being perched on a cliff in the middle of nowhere, I’m fine, see? Sorry, I just can’t talk about everything. Don’t worry, it’s nothing illegal. No drugs. We’re looking for my great- grandpa.”
“And great-grandpa was a Nazi?”
“He was fighting the Nazis.”
“Okay, that’s cool.”
But it wasn’t, completely, and the look he gave bothered her because it reignited her own doubts. That bullet casing. The cell phone battery. But Jake had been kind to her a hundred times this trip. Gentle. Caring. Loving. Sexy. Able. Confident. It was like a check-off list from Cosmo.
So why hadn’t she admitted she loved him?
Because he was guarded: he only revealed what he wanted to reveal. Because he was eccentric. Because, to be honest, sometimes he seemed too good to be true; guys weren’t like that. Because he’d given her his charm, she sensed, but not his heart. And because if she were honest about her own heart, she was here for herself, not him. It was an adventure. She was curious. She wanted to do something, to be something, that wasn’t just as add-along to some guy.
That wasn’t the same as love.
Jake called down. “Ready!” And up they went again.
In all, it took three hours. At last they neared the brink of the falls, the last scramble the steepest. Jake impatiently disappeared over the brow of the cliff, and then Sam. Wearily, Rominy dragged herself over, too. Were they about to see the oddities depicted in the satchel of diagrams?
A cold wind cooled her sweat when she stood, blowing out at her from a broken canyon. Jake was staring as if hypnotized, his arms dangling, his shoulders sagged. Sam Mackenzie had already slumped to rest on a boulder, puffing.
Above them, a ravine continued to climb toward ice and clouds, but its edges were uneven and the rock a lighter color, as if great chunks had broken loose and tumbled down. Ahead, seen through the fractured gorge, was a bowl of bright mountains, shimmering with snow, a perfect stadium of peaks. And in the middle was…
A lake.
The water was slate gray and opaque. From it ran the river, twisting through a broken barrier of boulders before dipping over the falls. Rominy went to where Jake was standing. He was staring, shocked. Clearly, this wasn’t what he expected to find.
“There’s no Shambhala, Jake.” She touched his shoulder. He twitched like a wary animal.
“They dammed the canyon,” he whispered.
“Who dammed the canyon?”
“They made a lake. It flooded the valley. It flooded Shambhala.”
“I don’t see a dam.”
“We just climbed up it. It’s a rock dam, an earth-fill dam, not a concrete one. Look.” He pointed up to the lighter-colored rock. “They blew out the canyon walls and it came down and plugged the river. Whatever was here is underwater.”
It looked like other alpine lakes she’d seen in the Cascades and Olympics, but Rominy decided not to contradict him. If he wanted to believe some kind of lost utopia was under the water, fine with her. But if the coordinates were right, they weren’t going to learn more about Benjamin Hood. And Jake didn’t have his scoop.
Now they could go home.
To what? How much of a couple were they, now that the quest had ended?
“You mean this happened sometime after 1938?” she clarified.
“Or even during 1938. Maybe this is why Hood slunk home to America and hid. Maybe he spoiled what would have been the greatest find in archaeological history.” The tone was bitter.
