Maria said, “I think you were right about the conditions up here on the mountain preserving him. The dry, cool days and cold nights above ten thousand feet are ideal. So, for the moment, he’ll probably be fine. It’s taking him down to sea level to a tropical forest that is the risk.”
Sam said, “Maybe we can improvise a container that’s cold and airtight and carry him down.”
“That’s our best hope,” said Maria.
“Where’s the nearest ice?” asked Christina.
“Above us,” said Sam. “There seem to be ice fields up above twelve thousand feet. I could see them yesterday. Maybe I can climb up and reach the lowest one.”
“The body bags,” said Christina.
“Body bags?”
Maria said, “When medical teams go into disaster areas, sometimes there are fatalities that need to be bagged to prevent the spread of disease. So we carry a few bags. We can use three or four at once to keep the body’s temperature even. They’re airtight and strong. If we put him inside one and then pack ice around him and put a bag or two over that, he should stay fresh.”
“I’m going with you,” Remi said, just beside Sam’s ear.
He shook his head. “Risking both of us doesn’t seem like the best idea.”
“Climbing up to an ice field alone is a worse idea.”
“Not necessarily,” he said. “It could save a valuable specimen.”
“You’re a pretty valuable specimen yourself, and two of us can bring twice as much ice,” she said. “Argue with that.”
“Do you get the impression I argue with you just to get my own way?”
“Never,” she lied.
“All right, then,” he said. “We’ll both go.”
She said, “At least we’ll have those nice body bags if anything goes wrong.”
Remi and Sam emptied their packs of almost everything but a body bag each, a hatchet for her, a shovel for him, water, and their fleeces and jackets. Then they set off to climb.
It was still midday when they began, but the climb was steep. They were able to accomplish the necessary progress without climbing gear because the irregular surface of the mountain offered footholds. After a time, they were on a windswept slope above the tree line on bare ground and felt tired and winded.
“I’m glad we spent a few days above ten thousand feet before we tried this,” Remi said.
“Me too. I just hope this works. I’d like to get up there and be well on our way back before dark.”
“If we keep up this pace, we should be able to do it.”
“Sure,” he said. “Anybody could do it if they could keep up this pace.”
They laughed, and found themselves going even faster. Soon they were climbing in silence, too winded to feel comfortable talking. Once in a while, Sam would turn and say, “You all right?” and Remi would reply, “So far.”
In late afternoon, they reached the snow-covered part of the mountain and stopped to look ahead. There was a big caldera at the top and three smaller ones along a ridge. Sam pointed to the white streaks. “See? The snow is only on the crests of ridges radiating out from the caldera.”
“The caldera must be hot,” Remi said.
“Well, let’s see if we can grab some ice and get down quickly.”
They walked along the rocky badlands between the calderas to reach the streaks of ice. When they got there, they dug down below the snow and found solid ice. They chipped at it with Sam’s shovel and Remi’s hatchet to free chunks they could break out. They gathered ice until they had as much as they could carry. They put it in the body bags, then wrapped the bags in their fleeces and jackets, put them in their backpacks, and began to walk back toward the top of the trail.
As they were hurrying toward the trail, there was a deep rumbling sound, and the rocky ground below them began to shake. They knew they wouldn’t be able to retain their balance. They each bent their knees, sat, and slipped the backpack straps from their shoulders while they waited out the earthquake. The shaking and rumbling continued for a minute, then another minute.
“Are you scared?” Remi asked.
“Of course I’m scared,” said Sam. “I have no idea whether this is just an aftershock or we’re about to have the mountaintop blow off and hurl us into the stratosphere.”
“Just testing your sanity,” she said.
As the rumbling abated, they became aware of a new sound, a hiss that was almost a whistle. It grew to a rushing sound, and then a roar that reminded them of an airplane’s engine. As they looked around for the source, a cloud of steam rose into their line of sight across the snowfield. It was white, spewing out of the mountain at high pressure from somewhere below them.
As soon as they had shouldered their packs again and shifted them to balance the weight of the ice they were carrying, they set off. They walked quickly, sometimes approaching a trot in places where the volcanic rock was clear and solid.
When they reached the beginning of the trail they had taken upward, the sun was low, its rays already horizontal and glaring in their eyes from Mexico on the west side and casting an enormous shadow on the green forests of Guatemala on the east. They moved downward without delay, passing spots they remembered. This time, they had to guard against letting their momentum propel them past a foothold into open air.
Now they could see the source of the noise and the steam cloud. It was a rift in the rocky mountainside where a plume of hot air and water was shooting out under immense pressure. They edged away from the steam, but they couldn’t stray too far without losing their way. Once they were below it, they felt a tentative relief. But an hour later, as they were descending a rock formation that looked like a series of frozen waterfalls, the rumbling in the earth began again.
“Better hold on,” said Sam, and they both found handholds and sat, Remi’s head on Sam’s shoulder. They kept their places while the rumbling increased and the mountain shook. The shaking seemed more violent, and it dislodged two showers of rocks a few dozen feet to their left that rolled down, hit other rocks, and caromed off into the air, then hit far below with audible impact.
The silence returned, and they began to descend again. They had to go more slowly now because, in places, new rockslides had fallen across their path, covering their old footholds and making them tread on untested spots. When darkness came, they used flashlights to choose every step. The shaking returned once more, but they were in an open, unprotected area, where they were extremely vulnerable to falling rocks, so they could only push on.
It was not until about one a.m. that Sam and Remi reached their starting point. They walked back above the main trail until they reached the site of the ruined shrine. As they approached the little plateau, they could see the artificial glow of a cell phone. “Somebody else must have a satellite phone,” Remi said. “I think Jose does,” Sam said. She called out, “Hello, down there. It’s us.”
The glow of the phone disappeared and a human shape moved along the patio. “This way!” It was Jose’s voice. He turned on a flashlight and lit the way for them to reach the shrine. “You must be tired,” he said. “I’ll show you the way to the camp.”
“First, we’ve got to get our friend on ice,” Sam said.
Sam, Remi, and Jose went into the shrine. They laid out a fresh body bag and carefully lifted the man into it, then zipped it shut.
“He seems so light,” Jose said.
“He’s mostly skeleton now,” Remi said. “The bones are only about fifteen percent of our living weight, which is mostly water.” They packed ice around the bag, slipped another bag over it, and then a third.
They heard footsteps approaching outside. Raul Mendoza called, “It’s my turn to stand guard,” then stuck his head into the entrance. “Oh, Fargos. It’s good to see you. When the mountain was shaking, we all got worried.”
“We’re fine,” said Remi. “After some sleep, we’ll be even better.”
The Fargos followed Jose on what must have been the remnant of an ancient trail on the mountainside to another flat space, where all the tents had been pitched. Sam played his flashlight’s beam up the mountain. “What’s above us?”
