Beyond the Summit (24 page)

“This is just one of those little snowfalls like we’ve been having, isn’t it?” Beth asked, her teeth chattering.

“Yes,” he lied to keep her spirits up, knowing too well that this wasn’t the light flurry of the previous days but a rapidly-developing, full-blown storm. No one had anticipated or dressed for it, including him. With the temperature continuing to drop, wind whipped through the tiniest openings in their clothing making them dangerously cold. Already noticing Beth’s stiffness, he said, “Keep walking. Do not stop.” With each step growing more difficult, they could only move between gusts and were frequently forced to stand for long periods huddled together with their backs to the wind.

Shaking and with her arms tucked tight against her body, Beth snuggled closer to him. “I’m so cold that I can’t feel my hands or feet anymore.”

More slender than the Norwegians, she couldn’t take this much longer. He had to get her inside a tent with dry clothes and a sleeping bag and do it soon. “We’ll camp here,” he said regretfully because they were still too high. Then came one of the hardest decisions he’d ever made. “I must go look for the porters carrying our tents and bags. Maybe they cannot find us or they have stopped already.” Wanting to pull Beth inside himself to keep her warm, Dorje stayed wrapped around her to the last minute before instructing Royd. “Find a place out of the snow, maybe under a large boulder, but do not go far. In thirty minutes call my name so I can find you.” After kissing Beth long and hard, he pulled her hands from under her armpits and clapped them. “Do this to keep your fingers moving.” He turned to Royd. “Take care of her.”

Pulling the collar over his nose and mouth to breath his own warm air, Dorje started out with the wind to his back now. Not prepared for this weather, the porters could be far behind or may have already set up camp to get warm. Accumulating quickly, the snow had covered his tracks. He tried noting markers to lead him back to Beth, but huge boulders disappeared into nothingness as visibility shrank to five feet. In the flat light, it was impossible to judge the unevenness of the ground, and he tripped over a rock, banging his knee. Pain shot up his leg. Getting back to his feet, he stumbled on, moving only by instinct for he could see nothing now. “Sangbu,” he called out to the senior porter, but the wind snatched his voice and buried it in thick clouds. He stopped to listen for a reply but heard only his heart pounding in his ears. Shouting again and again, he forced himself back up the pass. Still no answer. They could be lost or seeking shelter somewhere. What if he couldn’t find them? Beth was back there freezing. He would try fifteen minutes more and then return to her. Shouting until his breath felt torn, listening, shouting again, he trudged toward the summit of the Cho La. At last a muffled reply. “Sangbu,” he cried and heard the old man’s voice. Slowly, one by one, the porters stepped through a veil of snow like ghostly apparitions

“How many are you?” Dorje asked, shuddering with cold.

“Nine porters, the cook, and kitchen boys,” Sangbu answered. “The last porter is far behind. We haven’t seen or heard from him in over an hour but we had to keep moving.”

Phurbu who had worked for Dorje on the ladies’ trek said, “We don’t want to go on. We’ll put the tents up here and wait for you to bring the others.”

“No. You can’t stay here,” Dorje shouted at them through the howling wind. “She won’t make it. It’s too high and too far for them to climb back up in the cold. You must go down.”

“But our hands and feet are numb,” said another porter. “We don’t have good shoes or warm clothes.”

“I know,” Dorje hollered back. “Nobody does.” Watching a porter remove his
doko
and drop it, Dorje begged, “Please just one more hour. And if we don’t find them, I’ll go on alone.”

While the Sherpas talked among themselves, Lhamu stepped forward. “I’ll come.”

“So will I,” said Tashi. As the nephew of Mingma’s former best friend, Tashi had known Dorje all his life. Unlike his uncle, Pemba, he was tall and rangy for a Sherpa but with an intellect that couldn’t match the size of his body or enormity of his heart.

“And me,” added Phuri, the youngest porter. Soon the rest agreed to one more hour. Bowed under their loads, they started out once again unable to see where to place their feet. Driving snow and wind buffeted them until at times they could do no more than crawl.

“Just a little further,” Dorje pleaded each time he pulled someone to his feet. “Ten minutes, only ten minutes more.” He was afraid that both groups would die: one waiting for him, freezing and terrified; the other, fighting to get there. In a complete whiteout, he lost all sense of direction and had no idea whether he was walking toward Beth and the Norwegians or away. Soon it would be dark and the temperature would plummet further.

Coming up to him, Sangbu said, “It’s been more than an hour. We can’t go on.”

“I understand.” Seeing the disappointed look on Lhamu’s face, Dorje added, “You are too tired and must stay here. I will find Hamar and bring back the others.”

In one last attempt before setting out alone, Dorje called to Beth but only the wind answered in a mournful whisper. He yelled again and again until his throat was raw. Terror had a firm grip on him now, its icy fingers strangling all hope that Beth and the others would survive the night.

Holding his breath to prevent any distraction, Dorje heard only fear throbbing in his throat. He shoved his cries through the heavy cloud and waited, listening. Finally a sound so faint it didn’t seem human. “Set up the tents,” he ordered the porters. “I’m going after them. I’ll find Beth if I have to look until my fingers and toes turn white with frostbite. And when I can no longer walk, I’ll crawl like a baby. But I
will
find her.”

Alternately calling and listening, he plowed blindly through knee-deep drifts, guided only by distant shouts swallowed by the storm and spewed out in muted whispers. As the cries became clearer, Dorje thrust his entire body forward desperately trying to reach them before it was too late. Finally, he spotted a gray figure lurching toward him.

Dorje and Royd alternated shouting to his companions until they reached them fifteen minutes later. Shivering with icicles frozen in their hair and clothes, the two Norwegians were holding Beth tightly between them. “She fainted almost two hours ago,” Hamar explained.

As they spoke, Dorje was checking Beth’s hands, nose, and ears for frostbite by touch only because night had enveloped them in such darkness that he could only feel not see her snow-encrusted face. “We have to get her back to camp.”

“No,” Dorje shouted. “It would take twice as long to go and come back and I might not find you again. They have already set up camp and have warm tents and bags waiting for us.” He lifted Beth’s limp body and held to him. “Do as you like, but I’m taking her back.”

It hurt simply to breathe as frigid air seared his lungs and ripped the lining of his throat. With the Norwegians lagging and stumbling behind him, he walked, fell, staggered to his feet, tripped, and rose again. In his haste to get off the Cho La, he had neglected to honor the deity residing on the pass, not offered enough prayers, placed no stones on the pile. He must appease the angry gods. “
Om mani padme hum, Om mani padme hum
,” he repeated quietly, hoping the deity of this lower place would hear and protect them.

Between mantras, he told Beth that she must stay with him, not let go of life, because hers was more important than his own. “I love you. You are my goddess,” he repeated over and over, warming her face with his breath.

“I’m soooo cold,” she whispered back. Her first words gave him courage to continue. Walking as a blind man in the thick, heavy snow with nothing to guide him, he was suddenly, ambushed by an unseen boulder. Tumbling, he instinctively folded his arms over Beth’s head to protect her.

As Hamar and Royd helped him up, the large Norwegian with the gentle heart said, “I will carry her now.”

Dorje brushed the man’s arm away. “No. I must take her and I will not fail.”

Holding Beth pressed tightly against his body, Dorje carried her past the point where his legs became numb, calling to Sangbu and trusting that the gods would lead him there. In the distance, he saw a faint blue light. A witch? That’s how they appeared in the dark. Shaking off that thought, he had to believe there were no evil spirits, no restless
shrindis
, wanting to torment him tonight. Otherwise he wouldn’t have the strength to go on. “
Om mani padme hum.
” Coming closer to the light, he saw Sangbu standing in the snow holding a lantern. How long had he waited there?

“Is she alive?” the old man asked as he helped move her into a tent.

A shudder of relief rippled through Dorje. “Yes. Buddha willed it so.” Beth was still shaking uncontrollably as he laid her on the pad and carefully removed her wet jacket, shirt, and pants while Sangbu went for hot tea. After changing Beth and himself into dry clothes, Dorje crawled into the sleeping bag with her for body heat. He tucked her dead-cold hands in the warm spot between his legs and gently massaged them. Did the gods think his love for her was so fleeting that they could take her away? Not this woman who made his heart sing. They could not have her. He would die himself before letting go.

When Sangbu returned, Dorje whispered to her, “Open your mouth for hot tea.”

Teeth chattering so hard he could hear them striking, she answered, “I’m too coldddd.”

“But you must drink.” After two cups, her shivering subsided enough that she could sit holding a bowl of hot soup. Satisfied that she would be all right for a few minutes, he left to check on the others.

“We’re still damn sick and frozen, but we’ll survive,” said Royd.

Giddy as a child, Hamar called from his tent, “Lhamu is keeping me warm.”

In the dining tent, the other porters were sitting on the floor, shoulder-to-shoulder, wet and shivering while sharing a pot of
tsampa.
Dorje joined them. Wanting out of there too, no one argued when he said they must rise very early and get everyone lower. Since the wind made it too difficult to erect more tents, the porters moved all the gear to the outer walls of the dining tent and crowded into the center to sleep together.

Dorje crawled back in with Beth and wrapped his bag over them. With full body contact and two covers, they should stay warm. The storm hammered them for hours with a howling wind driving its icy breath through the canvas. As the cold penetrated clear to Dorje’s bones, he pulled the bag over Beth’s head and held her tighter. Through the constant flapping of the walls, he heard the creak and moan of distant avalanches and wondered if this nightmare would ever end. Finally emotionally and physically spent, he drifted into sleep. As wind bombarded the tent, the canvas groaned and one of the tethers ripped out of the ground slapping the roof and jolting him awake. Expecting the other tethers to go also, he ran his fingers along the ceiling and found it intact. The outside of their bags was covered with a fine layer of snow driven through the walls. He brushed it off before surrendering to sleep again, dreaming of the porter left behind.

Alone in heavy snow, the man was trudging toward the pass when strange yells and whistles shattered the silence. He stopped and listened. There they were again. When a rock glanced off his pack, the terrified porter dropped it and ran, sinking deeper and deeper until his legs couldn’t move. An enormous creature covered with shaggy, red hair grabbed his neck from behind, twisted him to the ground, and dragged him to its home to bury him alive. The porter screamed but no sound escaped his lips.